The Pacific Northwest is home to a number of talented women and femme musicians, particularly saxophonists, and Seattle-based tenor player Tobi Stone is a perfect example.
In the last 25 years, Stone has appeared with artists like Dave Brubeck and Anat Cohen, and toured with The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet and Reptet Jazz Septet. Stone was also the first female member of The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra.
A resident of West Seattle, Stone is a private music teacher and active performer, frequently playing out with their own group The Tobi Stone Jazz Quartet, as well as with other local artists like Seattle-based pianist Ann Reynolds and vocalist Jean Lenke.
Stone's next performance is April 11 with the Jumpin' Jennies at South Park Hall for a swing dance event called Swing It Seattle.
Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Are you from Seattle? If so, where in the city did you grow up? If not, where do you hail from?
I have been in the Seattle area since 1989, when my dad and I moved from Spokane to Kent for a job relocation. I was 12, just starting middle school, having picked up clarinet at age 10 and guitar at age 6.
What initially drew you to your instrument and jazz music?
When I was 14, I had the opportunity to listen to a professional saxophonist play for my school band class. Saxophonist Darren Motamedy, a Kent, Washington native, was substitute teaching and being an all around stand-up mentor for kids in my middle school band program, which was led by Meridian Middle School band director, Alan Paxton.
Hearing Darren play sealed the deal for me with saxophone and studying jazz. I already had a familial love of music that deepened with the sound of the tenor saxophone, and eventually all of the saxophones.
What projects or bands are you focused on right now and how did those projects come about?
I have a project with Ann Reynolds focusing on original music, which is sometimes billed under my name and recently under Ann's name.
This project started when Ann and I met at a jazz camp where she was mentoring, and I was a student. We then had a longstanding duo for 14 years at an Italian restaurant called Serafina. The next performance features Ann on piano, myself on tenor sax, Jessica Lurie on alto sax/flute, Geoff Harper on bass, and Chris Icasiano on drums.
The last couple of years, I have been immersed in the jazz manouche style from the 1920s through the 1940s. I've played for Djangofest on Whidbey Island with the band Cafe Impromptu, and in Seattle for the vibrant swing dance scene in various groups led by pianist Alex Guilbert, guitarist Jennie Mayer, and pianist Bellamy Hooks.
Another bandleader I've started working with in the last few years is jazz vocalist Jean Lenke, who champions female jazz musicians and composers in her Red Roses Project.
How would you describe the music you make and the type of musician that you are? Do you see yourself exclusively as a jazz musician?
I have played in many styles over the years, and explored genres that mostly feature saxophone, although clarinet is close second. I’m dabbling with Klezmer lately and coming back Eastern European influences from touring with The Tiptons Sax Quartet and Drums.
Overall, I'd describe my music as soulful, fervent, buoyantly searching. I consider myself mostly a jazz musician with a respect for the incredible breadth of musical genres and cultures that incubated them.
What role does the culture and environment of the Pacific Northwest play in your music and/or compositions?
There are so many little restaurants, coffee houses and curated beautiful spaces that I walk into and immediately hear music in my head. Also, when hiking or just grounding in the many parks nearby, it helps me tune in to why I make music.
Who are your role models in the Seattle jazz scene? Why?
When I was younger, my exposure to the Seattle and Portland-area scene heavily influenced my playing.
My list of mentors is long, but some that rise to the top include Olympia-based, multi-reed player Bert Wilson, because of his personal stories of jamming with Thelonious Monk, sitting in with John Coltrane once, seeing Charlie Parker in concert as a kiddo, and playing with one of the rare, working female jazz musicians of the time, trumpeter Barbara Donald. I studied with him over a span of 18 years and I've written original music inspired by his life and story.
I'm also influenced by Thomas Marriott, because of his fiery, impeccable playing, and because he spearheaded the Seattle Jazz Fellowship when Seattle needed it most, inviting the jazz community into common space and out of the pandemic isolation.
Other musicians I find inspirational include saxophonist Kate Olson, who melds improvised music and jazz, and trombonist Naomi Seigel, whose approach, compositions and dedicated work empowering marginalized community members I admire.
What’s your favorite local jazz venue and why?
Seattle Jazz Fellowship, because of it’s vision, perseverance, and community. It provides jazz access to a wider audience.
